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The first decade of the millennium brought both good and bad developments in the food and nutrition space. Mostly, this decade was a wake up call for many families and individuals that they cannot blindly trust government and market powers to provide the healthy food that they deserve.

2001 – Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by investigative reporter Eric Schlosser, is published. People begin to understand that there is a very high price society is paying for cheap food.

2003 – The FDA announces plans to permit food manufacturers to make “qualified health claims”. Industry can now rely on “Some scientific evidence” or “Very limited and preliminary scientific research” to make a health claim. Opponents criticize it as opening the door to ill-founded claims. Advocates believe it will make more information available to the public. We shoppers get more confusing marketing messages than ever.

2003 – the low carb diet craze is launched with the publication of the South Beach Diet. The trend peaked in 2004 and pretty much died off by the end of 2005.

2004 – Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, a documentary film following the health of its director eating only McDonald’s for an entire month, is released and meets with mixed reactions. Fast food chains duck for cover.

2004 – Passage of the Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act. Requires labeling of any food that contains one or more of: peanuts, soybeans, cow’s milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, and wheat. People suffering from allergies still confused over statements such as “produced in a factory which also processes peanuts”.

2005 – Blogging goes mainstream, and people find new and useful sources of information on any subject, including food, nutrition, and health.

2006 – Wal-Mart joins the Organic Food bandwagon, signaling the mass acceptance of a once hippy movement.

2006 – Trans-fat is proclaimed the new evil. It’s labeling is required on all packaged foods. As a result, many manufacturers reformulate their products.

2007 – Author, professor, and food lover Michael Pollan publishes The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and continues the theme of Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. The result is a mass yearning for organic, sustainable fare. A follow-up book in 2008, In Defense of Food, argues against the “nutritionism” and suggests a creation of a food culture where  we “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

2008 – COOL (country of origin) Labeling goes into effect. fresh beef, pork, and lamb. After repeated debilitation and stakeholder pressures, the law that was enacted in the 2002 Farm Bill finally went into effect on Oct 1, 2008, and even then with many loopholes.

2008-9 – Front of Pack Nutrition Labeling becomes a food industry pastime, with over 15 different systems competing who will become the dominant player. In late 2009, the FDA decides to start thinking of maybe possibly beginning a process of evaluation which could eventually lead to government regulation in this area. While Guiding Stars and NuVal still survive, Smart Choices is nixed.

2009 – In January, a salmonella outbreak caused by a dirty peanut butter processing plant in Georgia, leads to one of the largest recalls of products in the history of supermarkets. Hundreds of products are recalled after the unnecessary deaths of innocent peanut butter aficionados.

2009 – As the recession takes hold, many  turn to comfort foods. Although home cooked meals are generally healthier and cheaper than restaurant fare, McDonalds’s stock has never done better. Coupon usage increases for the first time since 1992.

Here’s a graph of McDonald’s (red)  vs. Whole Foods Market (blue) stock performance over the course of the decade. How’s your (nutrition) performance changed over the last 10 years?

Note #1 : Apologies for not mentioning any TV shows, of which surely some deserve mention, as we have not watched TV since the late 1990’s. Perhaps a fastidious reader would like to add these in the comments section.

Note #2:  many good ideas for this post appeared in Delish.

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You’re off to a meeting, flying to a conference, or simply got a hectic day to get through. You need an energy boost and don’t want a candy bar full of crazy ingredients. What do you do?

One healthy option is dried fruit, which, unlike their fresh cousins, can wait patiently in the pantry for over a year. We took a look at Dried Blueberries by Amport Foods, to see how good a (nutritious) deal we’re getting. Read more…

An interesting interview with the founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, John Mackey, on the Wall Street Journal earlier this week:

“We sell all kinds of candy. We sell a bunch of junk. Healthy, bulk foods such as grains, seeds, nuts and beans now account for about 1% of sales, down from 15% to 20%”, Mackey said.

read more on WSJ…

What you need to know:

Although Whole Foods started out as a health store, it has morphed over the years to become a purveyor of high class, high price products. Some are healthy, some are not. Just like a regular supermarket. Unfortunately, there’s not enough revenue for mega-chains in just selling unprocessed healthy food products in bulk.

What to do at the supermarket:

Whether it’s Whole Foods or Wal-Mart, some aisles are healthier than others. Buying mostly unprocessed foods and preparing meals at home is the key to a nutritious diet.

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David Brancaccio of PBS’s Now show interviewed filmmaker Robert Kenner, the director of “Food, Inc.” a few days ago. The movie takes a very critical look at the modern food industry and helps viewers better understand why supermarket fare for the most part is crap, and why 67% of Americans are obese or overweight. The full interview is 24 minutes long. Here are some good tidbits:

1. 90% of supermarket food has corn or soy products in it. (That’s because soy and corn are subsidized by the government, making them cheap to produce).

2. Fast food chains were the original drivers of the industrialization of food. McDonald’s is and has been for years the largest buyer of ground beef, pork, chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes in the US. And it will only work with suppliers than can provide a steady, uniform, reliable product 24/7/365. Real food doesn’t work like that

3. Candy and Soda are cheaper than fresh fruit and vegetables. What do you think poor people will choose to eat?

4. Food industry claims that consumers should show personal responsibility when choosing what to eat are insidious.

5. Food has not gotten safer over the years. Not if a single burger can have meat from one thousand cows in it.

6. Really sad – the federal government does not have the right to recall contaminated meat off of supermarket shelves.

7. A ray of light – consumers, through personal preference, convinced Wal-Mart to switch to milk from cows who did not receive growth hormones.

8. Watch out for “food libel laws” – Industry will sue you if you don’t talk nice about food products. Example: Oprah Winfrey was engaged in a lengthy legal battle with the meat industry for saying she’d consider abstaining from burgers at the height of the mad cow scare a decade ago.

9. The legal fees for the movie were 3 times higher than all his previous films combined.

What to do at the supermarket:

Your choices are what ultimately fuel the food industry. By buying unprocessed foods, mostly from the supermarket perimeter, you will avoid many of the pitfalls of modern industrialized food-like substances.

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Consumer Reports’ upcoming May issue will include an extensive report on supermarkets. [subscription required]

The good folks at CR surveyed over 32,000 shoppers across the nation to come up with a ranking of the 59 largest chains.

The ranking criteria used:
- Service level
- Quality of perishables such as meat and produce
- Price level
- Cleanliness

Unfortunately, overall nutritional quality of foods sold was not a criteria.

The top 5 supermarket chains for 2009 are:

1. Wegmans
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Publix
4. Raley’s
5. Harris Teeter

Whole Foods Market came in 8th, penalized heavily for its high prices, while Walmart came in third from last. Although it scored OK on prices, the other parameters were very weak.

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Alice Waters is a celebrated chef and one of the leaders of the organic and slow food movements in the US. She appeared tonight on CBS’s 60 minutes [12:31 minutes]:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Some tidbits from the interview:

Looking for flavor…I love it when people eat…Why would I need a microwave?…stewardship of the land…nourishment of the nation…press conference at the compost heap…

What you need to know:

Although Waters represents an extreme form of food consumption and preparation, more and more Americans understand that the modern food system is not working for them. Food is not as tasty as it should be, instant meals save us time but make us fat, and we’ve lost a connection of thousands of years our forefathers had to the land.

What to do at the supermarket:

How about checking out a farmer’s market near you the next time you go out for groceries? Don’t buy everything there, it’s way too expensive, but why not try just one item that you would have normally bought at the supermarket. Now decide if the flavor difference is worth coming back…

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In one sentence: Err on the side of caution – don’t buy a product with peanuts for the time being. If it hasn’t been recalled yet, it may be tomorrow.

As parents and slightly paranoid consumers, when someone tells us everything is fine, we worry. If that someone is an investment manager or the FDA, we worry A LOT.

While just 2 weeks ago consumers were assured that the PBS outbreak was limited, and that they need to watch out for only a few items, it now appears that almost any product containing peanuts in various forms  is being recalled. This is partly due to new findings about the subpar sanitary conditions at the supplier manufacturing plant, which included mold, slime, pests, and rodents. Yikes!

Peanut Corporation of America  expanded its recall to ALL products it manufactured at its plant in the past 2 years! The expanded recall includes dry roasted peanuts,  oil roasted peanuts, granulated peanuts, peanut meal, peanut butter and peanut paste. The firm has supplied hundreds of manufacturers across the country, so the results of this recall have had and will continue to have a ripple effect.

Some previous recalls are being expanded by manufacturers to additional products, and more states. The recal list is growing, almost by the hour. The FDA has contacted over 350 manufacturers concerning possible contamination.

But knowing how underfunded and understaffed the FDA is, does not add confidence that the parents are receiving timely advice. Nor does the fact that recalls are voluntary, which means manufacturers have the last say, instead of the FDA mandating a recall on day one of the outbreak.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you spot someone walking into a supermarket with a list of the 500+ products being recalled in order to find one that isn’t, please let us know. Right now,  parents are reading food labels carefully. May are avoiding anything with the word peanut in the ingredient list. Proceed with caution.

Here’s the Current Recall List: Read more…

More updates on the salmonella / peanut butter outbreak. According to USA Today:

Peanut butter and peanut paste manufactured by the Peanut Corp. of America (PCA) has been tied to the salmonella outbreak that has sickened 501 people in 43 states and is believed to have contributed to eight deaths.

Read the article…

Half of the outbreak victims are children under the age of 18. Children and the elderly are especially prone to sickness as a result of salmonella contamination.

A small consolation – The outbreak seems to finally be slowing down in the past day or two.

Here’s the Current Recall List: Read more…

photo: Elliott Minor/Associated Press

The current salmonella / peanut butter crisis has caused 500 illnesses and 7 deaths, with more product recalls every day (see updated list at the bottom of this post). The New York Times reports that the processing facility in Georgia was repeatedly cited for unsanitary conditions, as recently as 2007:

Inspections of the plant in Blakely, Ga., by the state agriculture department found areas of rust that could flake into food, gaps in warehouse doors large enough for rodents to get through, unmarked spray bottles and containers, and numerous violations of other practices designed to prevent food contamination. The plant, owned by Peanut Corporation of America of Lynchburg, Va., has been shut down. Read more…

Is the FDA doing enough?

Is the government, and more specifically the FDA, doing its best to protect us from poisoned food? With the resources at hand, maybe. But perhaps it’s not enough. Here’s why, based on the handling of the current PBS (peanut butter salmonella) situation:

The FDA can only recommend product recalls, not mandate them. And so, it is at the discretion of each and every manufacturer to decide if, what, and when to recall. Why do consumers need to hear each day of 10 new products being recalled, instead of having all 500 (or more) recalled immediately?

Salmonella can survive in peanut butter’s fatty environment for months. This means that people may have bought a product last month, that will be recalled tomorrow or in 5 weeks.  Worried consumers are not buying any peanut butter based products now, and this is ultimately going to hurt the food manufacturers. Had all potentially suspect products been recalled immediately, shoppers could continue to buy other products safe and sound.

Corporate responsibility

As of yesterday the FDA has singled out one Georgia factory as the source of salmonella. All companies who have received peanut butter and peanut paste from this factory in the past 6 months should immediately issue a recall on all products they have produced with the tainted peanut butter. Each of these companies surely must have records tracking which peanut butter went where, right? Right ?!

Could this tracking information be  incomplete, missing, or simply non-existent?

In the industrialized food reality of today, where a product can have 35 ingredients sourced from 20 suppliers in 12 countries, a good logistical database is a must. We certainly have the technology. Do corporations have the will?

Consumer Information

The FDA’s website is a good source of information on the current situation. However, for a crisis that is evolving literally by the hour, consumers have come to expect more frequent updates.

Hello (!), this is a post web 2.0 society – Youtube videos, twitter updates, facebook, and at a bare minimum – show us pictures of the recalled products, nobody can remember some of these products’ full names.

Here’s the Current Recall List:

46 Recalls, over 150 products as of early Saturday morning Jan 24.

• Whole Foods Market – “Carob Energee Nuggets”
• Amway Global – NUTRILITE Energy Bars
• Brent and Sam’s – Archer Farms Brand Cookies
• Brent and Sam’s – Sam’s Choice Brand Cookies
• Trader Joe’s – Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Chewy Coated & Drizzled Granola Bars, Nutty Chocolate Chewy Coated & Drizzled Granola Bars, Sutter’s Formula Cookies
• Parker Products – Peanut Butter Products (bulk)
• Arbonne International – Figure 8 Peanut Butter Chews
• Jimmy’s Cookies – Peanut Butter Cookies
• Perry’s Ice Cream Company – 2 more Peanut Butter Ice Cream Products
• Kroger -  Additional Select Ice Cream Product
• General Nutrition Centers – GNC Triflex Peanut Butter Soft Chews
• Chef Jay’s – Tri-O-Plex Products
• Rain Creek Baking Corp – Peanut Butter Turtles, Peanut Butter Baskets, Peanut Butter Princesses
• South Bend Chocolate Company – Extends Nationwide Recall of Candy
• Nash Finch – Bakery Products With Peanut Butter
• Aspen Hills, Inc. – Cookie Dough Products
• Best Brands Corp. – Peanut Butter Frozen Cookie Dough
• Lovin Oven, LLC – Health Valley Organic Peanut Crunch Chewy Granola Bars
• Landies Candies – Peanut Butter Filled Chocolates
• Weis Markets – Weis Quality (WQ) Cheese Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers , WQ Toasted Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers
• Blanton’s Candies – Peanut Butter Sticks
• Dinners Ready Meridian – Asian Marinated Flank Steak, Indonesian Chicken – Chicken Satay Prepared Meals
• Boca Grande Foods – POCO PAC, GRANDE GOURMET Peanut Butter Products
• Premier Nutrition – TWISTED and TITAN Branded Bars Containing Peanut Butter
• NutriSystem – Peanut Butter Granola Bar
• Ready Pac Foods – Trader Joe’s, Eating Right branded products
  
• PetSmart – Grreat Choice® Dog Biscuits
• Nature’s Path – Peanut Butter Optimum Energy Bars
• Country Maid – Classic Breaks® Peanut Butter Cookie Dough
• Evening Rise Bread Co. -  Peanut Butter Cookies and Bars
• Clif Bar -  CLIF® and LUNA® Branded Bars
• Kroger – Select Ice Cream Products
• Abbott Nutrition -  ZonePerfect® Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, ZonePerfect® Peanut Toffee Bars, NutriPals™ Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars
• Meijer – Peanut Butter Crackers, Ice Cream
• Peanut Corporation of America Expands Nationwide Recall of Peanut Butter
• Wal-Mart -  Bakery Brand Peanut Butter Cookies
• Lofthouse – Peanut Butter Cookies, Chuck’s Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies, Pastries Plus Gourmet Cookies
• Food Lion – Bake Shop Peanut Butter Cookies
• South Bend Chocolate Company – Candies Containing Peanut Butter
• McKee Foods – Little Debbie® Peanut Butter Toasty, Peanut Butter Cheese Sandwich Crackers
• Perry’s Ice Cream – Select Peanut Butter Ice Cream Products
• Hy-Vee Inc. – Bakery Products With Peanut Butter
• Peanut Corporation of America Expands Nationwide Recall of Peanut Butter
• Kellogg Company – Austin® and Keebler® Branded Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, Snack-Size Packs of Famous Amos® And Keebler® Soft Batch Peanut Butter Cookies
• Peanut Corporation of America – Peanut Butter (bulk packages)
• King Nut – Peanut Butter (bulk packages)

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